The Gadfly stands by his beliefs. And no - he doesn't need to point a gun in his neighbor's face to prove it .........

Man ... Willie ..

Waiting for responses from those guys ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

This is the graph that sends shivers down the spine of the Koch Brothers and the rest of the .01% elites (not unlike this fucking loser), and is the motivation behind their funding and propaganda efforts which support the Tea Party and equally corporate friendly politicians.

Guess what? America is becoming homogenized and inter-racial relationships are becoming more acceptable. Oh horror of horrors for the old, white, business man establishment -- huh?

The Gadfly has no fucking sympathy for the white supremacy losers and rest of that crowd who feel "White Power" is the nation's salvation. They are misfit morons who don't even realize that they and their archaic views are on the instinct list for this future world.

This is what is prompting the escalated plans by state governments to restrict voting rights -- as dictated by Republican officials.

This is why they are panicking dear readers. They see that graph above and they know that they'er fucking white guy days are numbered. It's self preservation.

And to that The Gadfly says --- fuck them. No mercy. Stomp them. They have had 200 fucking years of elite white guy power ..... enabled by a political system that they themselves constructed ... only they left a back door solution ... it's called:

The Gadfly is typically not prone to making lighthearted commentary revolving around human tragedy, but there are times when the irony is so distinctly infused with ethereal whimsy that it simply cannot be helped but to make special note of it.

Observe:

A man was crushed to death when a giant crucifix dedicated to Pope John Paul II collapsed and fell on him, ITV News reports. The accident came just days before a historic canonization that will see the late pope declared a saint.

The 98-foot-high wooden and concrete cross fell during a ceremony in the Italian Alpine village of Cevo on Thursday, killing 21-year-old student Marco Gusmini.

One might suppose that if your untimely departure from this earthly existence comes in the form of being crushed into a human pancake by the welcoming, outstretched arms of the concrete statue of your deified religious icon, then you're a winner man - you hit the afterlife jackpot.

This is the warped version of "Freeeeeeeeeeeeeedom" that gets the right wingers and the gun goon guys sexually aroused:

A Georgia man panicked parents and children at a local park and baseball field by randomly walking around and displaying his gun to anyone he encountered in the parking lot.

According to witnesses who spoke with WSB-TV, the man wandered around the Forsythe County park last Tuesday night showing his gun to strangers, telling them “there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Anyone who was just walking by – you had parents and children coming in for the game – and he’s just standing here, walking around [saying] ‘You want to see my gun? Look, I got a gun and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ He knew he was frightening people. He knew exactly what he was doing,” said parent Karen Rabb.

Rabb said that the man’s intimidating behavior panicked parents causing them to hustle children who were there to play baseball to safety after the man refused to leave.

“It got to the point where we took the kids and brought them into the dugout and the parents lined up in front of the dugout,” Rabb said.

Police report they received 22 calls to 911 reporting the man.

After deputies arrived, they questioned the man who produced a permit for the handgun.

According to authorities, since the man made no verbal threats or gestures, they couldn’t arrest him or ask him to leave.

The state of Georgia, under control of conservative Republicans, recently passed the most extreme loosening of gun laws of any state in the country and their Republican Governor signed it in to law. They basically gave carte blanche privilege to the gun goons to carry their killing toys just about anywhere they want to, including airports, churches, bars and other locations where the general public tends to gather for normally peaceful activities.

And the end result is this:

Parent Paris Horton, whose son was playing on the baseball diamond at the time of the incident, questioned the man’s motives.

“Why would anyone be walking around a public park, with a lot of children and parents and people here playing baseball, and he’s walking around with a gun?” said Horton. “I don’t think the parents would have been nervous had he just had the gun in his holster and was just watching the game.”

Rabb told a reporter that her 6-year-old son Ethan, who was playing on the field, later asked her about the man.

“When I was reading my son’s story last night, he turned to me and said ‘Mommy, did that man want to kill me?’” said a tearful Rabb.

Freedom for the cowardly nuts like the asshole in this story who like fondling their guns just as much as they do their genitals for sure, but not so much freedom for the rest of society who just want to take their kids to a fucking little league baseball game without having to fear whether or not the cretin strutting around like Yosemite Sam is legally allowed to do so, and whether he is or not, if his mind and intentions are sane and benevolent.

Btw - did anyone note what the parents of the kids did, based on the fact that they did not know what the armed man's intentions were? They gathered all the kids, put them in a dugout on the baseball field and all of the parents formed a protective shield line in front of their kids. Contrast that with what the gun-toting goons in Nevada said they would do to protect their gun goon rights -- they would line all the women up front and let them take the first shot. Fucking cowards --- all of them.

But this is the Tea Party's vision of a future America dear readers. If you allow them to make that vision a reality, you have nobody to blame but yourselves. Get involved, get out and vote and vote for anyone other than the Teabagger and NRA suck-up candidates. That's our only hope.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

The Gadfly has said it many a time before and will state it again -- as long as the Republican party continues to allow monsters like this guy to run under the umbrella of the GOP party and platform and get elected and become a welcomed member of their caucus, The Gadfly cannot in any sense of a decent conscience ever cast a vote for a Republican.

Observe their latest Frankenstein candidate:

One of the Republican candidates trying to unseat Lindsey Graham is doing what he can to see that Graham keeps his seat in the Senate. Det Bowers says it’s women’s fault that divorces occur, even when men are unfaithful.

During a sermon on the Book of Peter delivered at the Christ Church of the Carolinas, Bowers said it was an “abominable idolatry” when wives love their children more than their husbands, arguing that’s what causes divorces most of the time. He added that in the “vast preponderance” of situations where men are adulterous, women are to blame because they have showered too much emotion on their children instead of their husbands.

“And yet, I find that in about 95 percent of broken marriages, though the husband’s the one that ran out on his wife, the wife loves her children more than she does her husband,” Bowers said in an audio recording obtained by POLITICO. “That is an abominable idolatry.”

Bowers added, his voice rising: “Do you hear me ladies? It is an abominable idolatry to love your children more than you love your husband, and it will ruin your marriage. And yet you blame it on him because he ran off with some other woman! He did run off with some other woman, and you packed his bags. All of his emotional bags, you packed for him. Is that true in every case? No, but it’s true in the vast preponderance of them."

“You just ran him off. You paid more attention to your children than you did to him,” he said. “‘Oh, he doesn’t need me?’ He needs you more than they do. He chose you, they didn’t. An abominable idolatry."

How any woman of sane mind and sound manner could ever cast a vote for someone who harbors such hideous beliefs is eons beyond The Gadfly's comprehension.

Apparently this weirdo was a Democrat many years ago who once worked on Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign back in 1988. But a few years later he "found" God (or perhaps God's evil twin) and became a holier-than-thou, fire-breathing pastor who now finds himself and his views more aligned with the right wing Tea Partiers.

And quite honestly, with the kind of views about marriage and women which he is expressing here, he really is a perfect fit among that bunch and he ought to fare quite well in the state of South Carolina, where the general electorate seems to have collectively lost it's marbles when it comes to politics and determining what caliber of people are worthy of elected office.

Honestly though dear readers, it just simply astounds The Gadfly's sensibilities to no end just knowing that, here in the 21st century, there are still people running around spouting such primitive nonsense like this. Even more astounding is that they have managed to construct a formidable political movement (Tea Party) around these barbarous and repulsive views.

The Gadfly was beginning to think, after the events of the past week, that the conservative movement could not sink much lower when they rallied around the lying, law-breaking, seditionist welfare cowboy Cliven Bundy. But The Gadfly feels compelled to admit that he was wrong - for The Gadfly neglected to adhere to the cardinal rule when it comes to dealing with today's conservatives and the Tea Party loons -- never underestimate their ability to immerse themselves ever deeper in to their self-manufactured morass of insanity, pious meanness, moral disgrace, and pitiful world of persecution complex victimhood.

And as much as The Gadfly loathes this guy Bowers' opponent, that smug little weasel Lindsay Graham, The Gadfly would happily chair a get out the vote campaign on behalf of ol' Lindsay just to keep this Bowers asshole from getting his Taliban-inspired freak on in the halls of the U.S. Senate.

He's going to be sorely missed on Comedy Central with his move to Letterman's slot at CBS. Let's hope CBS let's him have some leeway with his creativity as they did at CC, because the man is one brilliantly and savagely funny sonofabitch:

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Fox "News" and Sean Hannity sure know how to pick the winners don't they? For the last couple of weeks, Hannity and Fox have been pimping the story of the second coming of Jesus Christ and George Washington in the form of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his fight with the evil g'ubmint.

Fox News' incessant promotion of Cliven Bundy abruptly ended after the Nevada rancher's racist rant was published in TheNew York Times.

Bundy's public feud with the Bureau of Land Management over his refusal to pay grazing fees received extensive support from Fox News, which devoted nearly five hours of primetime coverage to the story, including numerous interviews with Bundy and his family. Sean Hannity provided him so much positive coverage, Bundy praised the Fox News host as a "hero."

That praise fell silent after Bundy used one of his daily press conferences to engage in an overtly racist tirade, claiming black people "abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton"and suggesting that they were better off under slavery. The day after Bundy's rant was published in TheNew York Times, Fox News' coverage of Bundy ended rapidly.

Oh lordy Jeebus. And the GOP still, for the life of them, just cannot understand why the African-American vote consistently goes against their candidates by a 9-1 margin. Gee -- couldn't possibly be because a whole lot of racist fucking, loser schmucks have found refuge under the umbrella of their political party and spew their hateful, bigoted bile without repercussions from the Republican establishment and it's media outlets -- could it??

The Gadfly had this Cliven Bundy loser, along with the armed cretins who's itchy trigger fingers were ready to shed blood to protect Bundy's criminal behavior, pegged the day the story broke. The Gadfly has been around in his lifetime you see. The Gadfly has met all kinds of Americans, mostly decent people, but also a fair share of nasty, hateful bastards. Bundy and his clan and his Yosemite Sam wannabe supporters fall quite neatly in to that latter category.

Cliven Bundy boldly states that he does not recognize the government of the United States of America as being legitimate. In fact, Mr. Bundy claims that the government of the United States of America is non-existent in his view and therefore he and his actions are not bound by any of it's laws. To which The Gadfly would thus respond -- then get the fuck out of this country you fucking free-loading illegal immigrant - because, even though they may not be happy with it, 99.99% of the rest of the inhabitants of this country recognize the legitimacy of the government that they elected - as well as the laws that their representatives crafted - because that is a core tenet of the responsibility that goes with the privilege of possessing American citizenship.

Lastly - a local Las Vegas television station did a bit of digging around in Nevada public records and found evidence that completely counters the claim by Cliven Bundy that his ancestors have been grazing cattle on the federal land in question since the 1870's - observe:

"I've lived my lifetime here. My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley here ever since 1877. All these rights that I claim, have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water and the access and range improvements," Bundy said.

Clark County property records show Cliven Bundy's parents bought the 160 acre ranch in 1948 from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt.

Water rights were transferred too, but only to the ranch, not the federally managed land surrounding it. Court records show Bundy family cattle didn't start grazing on that land until 1954.

The Bureau of Land Management was created 1946, the same year Cliven was born.

So -- not only is the right wing's hero Cliven Bundy a phony, welfare mooching, racist shitkicking criminal -- he is also a pathological liar.

And of course now that the totally unsurprising truth about the personal character of Mr. Bundy is making it's way into the public consciousness, the conservative politicians and media gasbags who were pimping this asshat and his fake cause are furiously peddling their propaganda bicycles in rapid reverse - and it is simply fucking hilarious to watch.

Those of you dear readers that have been hanging around this shitty little blog for some time know that The Gadfly has on many occasions brought up the subject of conservatives being on the wrong side of history over and over and over again and lo and behold, another huge story comes along which the conservatives knee jerk adopt as their own cause c'elebre', and true to form -- they end up on the wrong side of history yet again.

If this were a sane country that valued intellectual sanity, the fact that an ideological/political movement can be so consistently, and persistently, wrong on just about every social and human rights and human decency and foreign affairs issue of the past 50 years would not go unnoticed by American voters when they step in to the voting booths to elect representatives in state and national level elections. A political movement that is so wrong so often and deliberately so, should not, in the best and fairest of all possible worlds, be awarded with the responsibility of governing such an ideologically diverse population of citizenry.

Continually electing these perpetually wrong-headed clowns to public office signifies that you either agree with their wrong-headed positions or that you simply just cannot bring yourself to admit that you have been siding with a bunch of history's losers whose time of societal usefulness, not unlike the Dodo Bird, is drawing near to an discreditable end.

Lastly -- can we all just agree that whenever you hear Sean Hannity or any of the Fox "News" and right wing media talking heads talk about the Cliven Bundy types of Americans being Godly, salt of the earth patriots, what they really mean is this:

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Fox News media analyst Lauren Ashburn speculated on Sunday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have "planned" her daughter Chelsea's pregnancy to coincide with a 2016 presidential bid.

After the younger Clinton announced that she was expecting a child last week, so-called "Chelsea Truthers" in the conservative media began dropping hints that the timing may not have been a coincidence.

Unable to drum up any worthwhile or truthful dirt on Benghazi or the IRS or Obama's birth certificate, it's desperation time for the scandal mongering monkeys at Fox "News."

Apparently, according to your friendly neighborhood wingnuts, around 9 or 10 months ago, Hillary Clinton conspired with her daughter Chelsea, and her son-in-law, to get Chelsea pregnant just in time for the run up to the 2016 election in order to make "Grandma" Hillary appear more appealing to women voters.

Sigh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

How long has The Gadfly been debunking the bullshit idiocy of the right on the lonely, homespun pages of this shitty little blog dear readers?? Well - just go look through the archives - it's been the better part of a decade.

This is why The Gadfly's exasperation frequently comes through in his posts. It's because the fucking stupidity with these cretins never ends - it is incessant - and the mainstream media doesn't have the fucking balls or the the moral fortitude to call out their bullshit. And that is why that job is left to us dirty fucking hippies out here in dirty fucking hippie blogger land.

Fox "News." What a fucking joke of a network. The Gadfly will tell anyone to their face - if you watch that network and believe everything ... no, anything ... they tell you -- you really do need to stop procreating and if procreating is beyond your physiological abilities, then just go play hopscotch in the middle of your nearest interstate freeway during rush hour traffic.

Ohhhh - the stupidity and freak show is just beginning dear readers ... just beginning .........................

First she insists that the government never sends in men with guns to collect an "unpaid bill." That's ridiculous. Men with guns come and arrest people all the time for failing to pay their taxes and their property is often confiscated. Suspected drug offenders often don't even get a day in court --- the government just seizes their property, auctions it off and keeps the money, regardless of the outcome of an arrest. People are removed from their homes by armed police every single day for failing to pay their mortgage or their rent.

What does she thinks backs up every law in this country? Men with guns who can come to your house, arrest you and seize your property if you don't abide by them. If she's an anarchist who doesn't believe in this system, she ought to admit it.

It puzzles The Gadfly to no end as to why these progressive talk show hosts continually invite lunatics like Michele Fiore on the air to spew their vomitous horseshit. But that's what happens when you have corporate lackey producers who's primary mission is to gin up ratings instead of just delivering the facts of a story.

This is the second time in the span of a few weeks that Hayes has invited a mentally challenged fruitcake on to his show to froth at the mouth spazz while attempting to defend their indefensible positions. It serves no purpose other than to sexually arouse the wingnuts who are arrogantly certain that the warrior of their ideas won the argument. And as such - they masturbate in unison all over the internet --- (just google 'Chris Hayes Michele Fiore' to see what The Gadfly is talking about).

Obviously from one standpoint it is comforting to see just how the conservative nut jobs desperation is to the point that they lustily cheer the most loutish of their kind absence of any evidence of their integrity or honor, but for fuck's sake - they don't need any more national tv platforms to spew their idiocy from -- that's what Fox "News" exists for.

So yeah -- enough already Chris Hayes and MSNBC -- stop giving these teabagging psychopaths a free platform to spout their lame-brained, uninformed inanity from. Or at least if you're going to invite them on to scream like banshees, take the time after letting them spout to declare to the world that you are of the view that they are dangerous nutbags whose views represent only a minority of Americans and should be viewed as nothing more than such.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

What would these fuckers have done during the post WWII 40's and 50's when the top tier tax rate was between 70% and 90%, and unions were popular?:

During an event at the University of Tennessee’s law school on Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia suggested to the capacity crowd that perhaps they should revolt against the U.S government if their taxes ever get too high.

During a question and answer part of the event, a student asked Scalia about the constitutionality of a federal income tax. Scalia assured the questioner that the tax was in fact permissible by the constitution, but added that if it ever became too high, “perhaps you should revolt.”

The remark, first reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel, has become a common rhetorical flourish for conservatives nationwide during the Obama presidency.

What conservatives and Teabaggers never want to have a fair and rational discussion about is just how beneficial a progressive tax rate on the wealthy and unions helped America rebound from the devastating economic impact that was the outcome of fighting and winning World War II. It is a subject which they would just as soon leave buried in the sands of time and if given the opportunity, they would bulldoze tons of more sand on top of it.

There's a reason for that. It's because their droning mantra of less taxes for the "job creators" is a masterful con job. It always has been. They started that shit when Reagan came in to office. And look at the downward slide of the country since then. Oh sure -- there are plenty of gutless and spineless Democrats who are just as much to blame for for all of it, but in the overall scheme of things, it has been the conservatives and Republicans who have done the yeoman's work of paving the way for the oligarchs to complete their mission of transforming America into the world's preeminent banana republic.

Aside from Scalia's convenient omission of past tax rate history and the fact that higher taxes on the rich have never doomed the country, but in fact benefited it, what is truly disturbing to The Gadfly is that we have a sitting United States Supreme Court Justice exhorting people to overthrow the government because ---- The Gadfly doesn't really know ---- just because he can???

As the article denotes -- the complete elimination of taxes is one of the core rallying cries of the Teabaggers and the sovereign citizen clowns and the rest of that seditious crowd - and they have not been shy about threatening violence if they don't get their way. Just look at the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995 to get an idea of just how far these fucking losers are willing to go to advance their cause.

Is Antonin Scalia siding with those people and urging them to try and overthrow they government because they don't want to help pay for their public schools, their fresh water systems, their electricity grid, their street and highway maintenance, their community colleges, their social security system, their medicare system, their . . . . fuck .... does The Gadfly really need to rattle off all of the public services and benefits that we Americans get with our tax dollars?

Some reporter or media person who has yet to sell his soul to the corporate devil ought to ask Mr. Scalia that question and record it for posterity.

The Gadfly is done playing nice with the conservatives, and he's a hair's breadth away from even playing fair with them any more. Like our U.S. Marines who find it difficult to deal with terrorists who use despicable tactics of using women and children as battlefield shields, The Gadfly is questioning why he should grant any boundaries of fairness to people of the Cliven Bundy type who have no qualms about putting women at the front of their battle lines.

They are cowards dear readers. They are not rational human beings. They are immoral.

Antonin Scalia, on the other hand, is a coward of whole different color. He uses his power as a SCOTUS to fuck with society. As if he's a demi-god. Well -- he's not a demi-god, and in fact hes nothing more than a bought and paid for whore of the ruling elites.

And the sooner that the majority of America recognizes that FACT, understands the implications of that FACT, accepts that FACT and collectively decides to deal with it -- the better off we all will be.

Oh --- and Fat Tony --- Go fuck yourself you fat useless piece of shit who has no business at all sitting on the highest court of the land passing judgement on others or pontificating on any subject that is meaningful to your fellow citizens ......................................................

The "human drama that is Grandma Clinton?" Please tell The Gadfly this pencil-neck geek is joking?

Unfortunately he was not.

First off dipshit - there has been no announcement one way or the other as to whether Clinton will be running for President in 2016. None. Nada. Zilch. Secondly dipshit - the 2016 election is 2 and a half years away - isn't there enough shit going on in the world today that hyenas like you should be focusing attention on instead of a bunch of what-if? nonsense that may or may not come to pass years in to the future? Thirdly - even if Hillary does decide to run, who the fuck gives a shit if she has a grandkid? And if someone is going to cast their vote for or against Hillary simply because she is a grandmother, then The Gadfly is all for permanently revoking that individual's right to participate in the electoral process because they are obviously too fucking stupid to be trusted with the responsibility that comes with such a privilege. And lastly -- The Gadfly has grandkids - nobody seems be of the view that that fact involves much, if any "human drama" in The Gadfly's life. It's like gee -- what a shocker -- a 68 year old woman has a grandkid - what a unique situation. NOT!!

It's because of precocious twits like Andrew Ross Sorkin that The Gadfly cannot stand watching any cable television news or talking head shows any more. They book the same fucking preening jackasses and know nothing tools as guests over and over again and nothing resembling intellectually redeeming value is ever gained from watching any of them.

It really is just another sad piece of evidence of how utterly useless the mainstream media has become by the dumbing down of their programming which was done with the cynical attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator viewer demographic (The Gadfly is looking at you Tea Partiers).

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Charlie Pierce over at Esquire Magazine online, is usually pretty astute about all things political, especially anything having to do with the insanity and flim-flammery of right wing conservatives.

But Charlie, in this post, stumbled across something, apparently unbeknownst to his self, that humble bloggers like The Gadfly have been ruminating about on their shitty little plots of cyber space for quite some time.

Observe:

I have been remiss in not commenting on the fascinating piece in Tiger Beat On The Potomac this morning about the financial arrangements between various conservative sugar daddies and the radio stars of the far right, which is further proof that Ken Vogel is the most valuable asset that publication has. (Ably assisted in this case by Mackenzie --To The Ramparts Of Chapultepec! -- Weinger.) It seems that conservative political talk has brought us into an entirely new frontier of payola.

A POLITICO review of filings with the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Election Commission, as well as interviews and reviews of radio shows, found that conservative groups spent nearly $22 million to broker and pay for involved advertising relationships known as sponsorships with a handful of influential talkers including Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh between the first talk radio deals in 2008 and the end of 2012. Since then, the sponsorship deals have grown more lucrative and tea party-oriented, with legacy groups like The Heritage Foundation ending their sponsorships and groups like the Tea Party Patriots placing big ad buys.

Now I am no radio expert, but it seems to me that arrangements like the ones described in this investigation -- e.g. $1.3 million from the Heritage Foundation to Sean Hannity in 2011 -- largely would immunize the hosts against pressure from both sponsors and ratings. Why worry about landing that male-enhancing account or those nifty auto-glass commercials if Americans For Prosperity can just cut you huge checks just for...well, for just being you.

There is actually a term for this chicanery. It is known as "Wingnut Welfare."

Yup. And here is the "official" definition of what it is:

Wingnut welfare refers to jobs or deals offered to conservativeson the basis of ideological purity rather than talent or experience. The term was coined in 2005 by blogger Jane Hamsher, who used it in reference to Pajamas Media.[1] It has since become a popular term among liberal bloggers.

Wingnut welfare typically describes positions at conservative publishing houses, opinion journals and websites. However, not all such positions are considered wingnut welfare. The term is generally applied to those positions or deals which are divorced from free-market business principles. Put simply, wingnut welfare recipients are not expected to generate profit or even make any money at all. Such operations are heavily subsidized by wealthy benefactors such as William Regnery Jr. and Richard Mellon Scaife and organizations such as the John M. Olin Foundation.

Some right wing loon (some form of minor celebrity status is usually a prerequisite) somewhere gets a bug up their political ass and decides to write an article or a book attacking and trashing progressives, democrats, Obama, the "liberal media" or whatever their outrage of the day is, and so they shop it around to friendly media outlets (publishing, tv, web, etc.), and then they rely on a well-coordinated network of wealthy conservatives to fund the publishing of it. They collect the undeserved paycheck upon publication and recycle the money right back in to crafting ever more articles and books of dubious nature and equally dubious socially redeeming value.

A simple, more specific example would go something like this: Ann Coulter writes a screed smearing the patriotism of liberals who questioned Bush's decision to invade Iraq. She lines up a right-wing sugar daddy like Richard Mellon Scaife or the Koch Brothers, who buy up a million copies of her book. They subsequently turn around and peddle those copies away for pennies on the dollar to literature brokers and other retail book outlets, all the while pimping the book as a "best seller" that has sold a million units and therefore deserves prominent display at the front of the retailer's main display case. And now that Coulter is a "best seller" author, she gets invited to pimp her book on Fox "News" and AM hate radio and the cycle of degenerate narcissism is complete.

So you see how that works kids? It's all a bunch of bullshit smoke and mirrors to give the impression that the screed penned by the conservative "author" has widespread appeal and therefore national consensus popularity - when in fact it has none at all. It's quite a racket they have going on, and with the rise of the Tea Party, the underhanded practice of doing it has only become more prevalent in the conservative movement.

If you ask The Gadfly, the fact that the conservatives have to resort to such childish deceit and subterfuge to get their viewpoints out in to the arena of public discourse to begin with, truly is a tell-tale sign of just how noxious and unappealing those views must actually be to most Americans.

Anyhow, just something to think about the next time you're at Barnes & Noble and see a book by grifters like Rush Limbaugh, or Dinesh D'Souza, or Sarah Palin sitting in the main display case with the gaudy claim of "New York Times Best Seller!" as a selling point --- it's just a bunch of double-dealing bullshit lies.

The Gadfly is not overly thrilled about harping on this Nevada rancher fracas, but it is important to understand that the mentality behind what the mooching rancher, Cliven Bundy, and his armed followers are doing is setting a dangerous precedent that, if allowed to propagate, is destined to end eventually in unnecessary bloodshed.

One aspect about this skirmish that really pisses The Gadfly off is the right's, along with media enablers like Fox "News," insinuation that this conflict is all about this poor, oppressed cattle farmer who is being forced against his free will to be subjugated under the leather jack boot of a tyrannical and illegitimate government.

Well guess what dear readers? That is out and out pure and unadulterated horse shit - and Mr. Cliven Bundy knows it. And his slack-jawed, itchy trigger-finger followers are just as full of shit, and as usual, on the wrong side of history and the law.

There is a great article in Salon written by a guy who was born and raised in rural Nevada amid the cattle ranches and hard-scrabble, desert life who is also calling bullshit on Mr. Bundy and his pistola-totin' trained monkey brigades.

The primary thrust of the article highlights the reality of what this whole fracas is truly all about and it very effectively, and totally clarifies the mentality of Mr. Bundy along with his justifications for what he is doing - not that Bundy and his boneheaded posse of Yosemite Sam wannabes give a shit about reality of course.

But the main point to be taken away from the Salon article is this:

We could argue about whether the land should belong to the federal government, but what is not in dispute is that Bundy has no ownership of it. He won’t even pay fees to use it. In short, he refuses to pay rent, like thousands of other ranchers do dutifully every year. Again, I’d like to observe if Bundy is not a communist, he’s at least an aggressive socialist.

Bundy’s foundational argument is that he “has been using the land for generations.” He claims to have “ancestors” who worked the land since the late 1800s. If Bundy wants to make this argument, he’ll need to chat to a Native American or two from one of the many different tribes in Nevada who were here far before Bundy’s ancestors. Also, I thought America was about building wealth through capitalism, rather than depending on your daddy to pass on his membership into the landed aristocracy. Bundy seems to think himself a member of the neo-nobility.

Basically, the author is saying that Bundy's claim that just because his Mormon ancestors were herding goats and cows in the area a hundred and thirty years ago does not magically translate to him being the legal and rightful owner of the land. On top of that, all of the thousands of other ranchers in the area, whether they like it or not or agree or not, recognize the federal government as being the owner of the land and they do not seem to have much of an issue with paying the fair and modest fees which allow them to graze their animals and make an honest living doing so.

And if that argument wasn't enough to convince you dear readers of Mr. Bundy's charlatanism, there is an even more in-depth article in The Atlantic Magazine which blasts a Mack Truck sized hole through Bundy's cynicism of wrapping himself in the American flag and Tea Party-style patriotism:

But Bundy's understanding of states' rights is far different. As he told Sean Hannity in an interview last week (emphasis added):

Well, you know, my cattle is only one issue—that the United States courts has ordered that the government can seize my cattle. But what they have done is seized Nevada statehood, Nevada law, Clark County public land, access to the land, and have seized access to all of the other rights of Clark County people that like to go hunting and fishing. They've closed all those things down, and we're here to protest that action. And we are after freedom. We're after liberty. That's what we want.

Bundy's claim that the land belongs to Nevada or Clark County didn't hold up in court, nor did his claim of inheriting an ancestral right to use the land that pre-empts the BLM's role. "We definitely don't recognize [the BLM director's]jurisdiction or authority, his arresting power or policing power in any way," Bundy told his supporters, according to The Guardian.

His personal grievance with federal authority doesn't stop with the BLM, though. "I believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada," Bundy said in a radio interview last Thursday. "I abide by all of Nevada state laws. But I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing." Ironically, this position directly contradicts Article 1, Section 2 of the Nevada Constitution:

All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security and benefit of the people; and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public good may require it. But the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and Perpetuate its existence, and whensoever any portion of the States, or people thereof attempt to secede from the Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.

Translation?: Bundy's stance that he does not recognize the United States of America's government as being a legitimate entity with the right to legislate and enforce laws, and that he only recognizes the lawful rights of the state of Nevada to do such, is blown straight to fucking kingdom come by the fact that Nevada's very own state Constitution states that the "allegiance" of every citizen of the state is bound to the duty of compliance with and deference to that of the Federal Government and it's Constitutional powers.

In summary, Mr. Bundy and his merry band of wingnut gun goon pals are on the wrong side of the law not only at the Federal level, but also at the state of Nevada level.

And those Republican/Tea Party politicians, and media asshats (The Gadfly is looking at you Sean Hannity) who are enabling these cretins and egging them on need to be held accountable for supporting the act of sedition -- which The Gadfly's dictionary defines as:

Sedition

A revolt or an incitement to revolt against established authority, usually in the form ofTreasonorDefamationagainst government.

Sedition is the crime of revolting or inciting revolt against government. However, because of the broad protection of free speech under the First Amendment, prosecutions for sedition are rare. Nevertheless, sedition remains a crime in the United States under 18 U.S.C.A. § 2384 (2000), a federal statute that punishes seditious conspiracy, and 18 U.S.C.A. § 2385 (2000), which outlaws advocating the overthrow of the federal government by force. Generally, a person may be punished for sedition only when he or she makes statements that create a Clear and Present Danger to rights that the government may lawfully protect (schenck v. united states, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S. Ct. 247, 63 L. Ed. 470 [1919]).

So once again, The Gadfly will state unequivocally that if bloody violence is the end result of this engagement, that blood will be the sum totality of culpability which will stain solely the hands of Cliven Bundy, his gun goon pals and the right wing media and right wing politicians who are enabling and encouraging their lawless actions.
Period.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Gadfly did not need an Ivy League commissioned "study" to tell him this:

The news: A new scientific study from Princeton researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page has finally put some science behind the recently popular argument that the United States isn't a democracy any more. And they've found that in fact, America is basically an oligarchy.

An oligarchy is a system where power is effectively wielded by a small number of individuals defined by their status called oligarchs. Members of the oligarchy are the rich, the well connected and the politically powerful, as well as particularly well placed individuals in institutions like banking and finance or the military.

For their study, Gilens and Page compiled data from roughly 1,800 different policy initiatives in the years between 1981 and 2002. They then compared those policy changes with the expressed opinion of the United State public. Comparing the preferences of the average American at the 50th percentile of income to what those Americans at the 90th percentile preferred, as well as the opinions of major lobbying or business groups, the researchers found out that the government followed the directives set forth by the latter two much more often.

It's beyond alarming. As Gilens and Page write, "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy." In other words, their statistics say your opinion literally does not matter.

This shit all started under Saint Ronald Reagan who promised us with that phony, aww shucks!, Hollywood actor smile and sales pitch that America could only be saved if we just kept giving more and more and ever more to the wealthy while taking more and more and ever more from society's most disadvantaged and middle class.

We were promised that if we only let the multi-national corporations and the big utility and fossil fuel companies to regulate themselves that it would foster more competition and create more and better paying jobs and therefore a more equitable economy.

We were promised that as long as we kept shoving our military-industrial-complex noses in to all of these regional civil wars and foreign affairs of other countries around the world, that America would be saved from imminent, invading hordes of whatever brown-skinned people we were being told to be pants-wetting scared of at the given time.

We were promised that if we just let the Wall Street gamblers gamble with "their" money the way they want to, the wealth which they were sure to create would trickle down to all of us peasants.

Of course every single one of those promises was demonstrable bullshit, and many of us dirty fucking hippies have tried to warn Americans not to buy into the lies over the years, but it's beginning to look like it is too late for regrets, if any even exist, now.

One of the other promises they were making, which fortunately there existed barely enough politicians who still possess anything resembling a conscience, fought and blocked, was handing over the keys to the Social Security lockbox to the likes of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bank of America, JP Morgan and the rest of that Pirate crew on Wall Street.

The Gadfly does not exaggerate that if those fuckers ever get their grubby hands on Social Security, it is game over for the "American way of Life." We will all be relegated to the status of wholly owned, indentured chattel to the oligarchs at that point.

And all of that majestic talk in The Declaration of Independence about all men being created equal, and unalienable rights and the pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness -- will be come long forgotten words in a long forgotten document - a document that will be nothing more than a long forgotten relic of the history of a country that once had promise, but through stupidity, greed and selfishness, allowed itself to be fooled in to giving up everything good and noble about it's self for the impotent and hollow promises issued from the stale, cold lips of those whose ruthless pursuit of power and profit stood in clear contrast to the benevolent aspirations of a country and it's people -- a country and people who supposedly possessed exceptional, merciful and divine qualities.

It speaks volumes about a society that seems to have an unlimited supply of taxpayer cash to give away in tax cuts to millionaires, billionaires, Wall Street and wealthy investors, but not nearly enough to invest in safeguarding a core asset of our national infrastructure, an asset, which in this day and age, is nearly as indispensable as water and electricity. This is kind of frightening actually:

Efforts to fix the notorious Heartbleed bug threaten to cause major disruptions to the Internet over the next several weeks as companies scramble to repair encryption systems on hundreds of thousands of Web sites at the same time, security experts say.

Estimates of the severity of the bug’s damage have mounted almost daily since researchers announced the discovery of Heartbleed last week. What initially seemed like an inconvenient matter of changing passwords for protection now appears much more serious. New revelations suggest that skilled hackers can use the bug to create fake Web sites that mimic legitimate ones to trick consumers into handing over valuable personal information.

The sheer scale of the work required to fix this aspect of the bug — which makes it possible to steal the “security certificates” that verify that a Web site is authentic — could overwhelm the systems designed to keep the Internet trustworthy.

“Imagine if we found out all at once that all the doors everybody uses are all vulnerable — they can all get broken into,” said Jason Healey, a cybersecurity scholar at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “The kinds of bad things it enables is largely limited only by the imagination of the bad guys.”

How about taking back those GW Bush tax cuts for the 1%ers, putting the upper tier tax rate back to the same level it was under Clinton, and invest that extra revenue in America's future as tax credits for companies to hire and train Americans to fix this shit -- you know -- doing the job that these so-called fucking "job creators" are supposed to be doing - namely job creation? Huh?? Huh???

But just the mere suggestion of depriving the poor billionaires of those 5 new yachts, those 10 new mansions, those half dozen new media companies and all of the tender, compliant, congressional ass meat that ill-gotten profits can purchase, would cause the right wing conservative's brains to implode in stupidly indignant outrage.

But that is where this country is at these days politically. A small minority of clearly insane and reality denying, fascist, oligarch enabling idiots, are for all deliberate intent and purpose, impeding the country's ability to climb out of the wreckage of one of the most devastating economic calamities in history and for which millions of Americans have been suffering through, simply because of their childish, foolish and destructive hatred of a single man.

Lol -- some times you just have to laugh at the conservative's clown college behavior . . .

Observe one of Willard Romney's parasitic offspring tweeting a picture of his dear old dad purportedly standing in line yesterday at the post office with the rest of the local peasants to drop off his tax returns:

1. Does not Willard's tax accountant (and please don't try and bullshit The Gadfly by claiming Willard is one of those salt-of-the-earth real 'Amurrikans who uses TurboTax to do his own taxes) know how to E-File for his millionaire clients so that they don't have to wade in to the filthy sea of human dregs and wait in line at the post office?

2. What kind of successful millionaire businessman waits until the last moment on April 15th to turn in his taxes? You mean to tell The Gadfly that his accountant just finished them up yesterday morning?

3. What kind of successful millionaire businessman doesn't pay some lackey assistant to do the gopher work of schlepping an envelope to the post office? And why does he have to stand in line? To buy a stamp for his envelope? You really going to try and tell The Gadfly that this is routine behavior for an elitist schmuck who has an elevator in his garage for his fucking cars?

Lol. If you ask The Gadfly, the whole photo and story smells fishier than Lindsay Lohan's crotch after one of her five day party benders.

It's just sad how these people think they are fooling anyone but the most gullible of wingnuts with such amateurish, ham-handed propaganda like this.

It's also a reflection of the character of the Romney clan that they would even try to use such clumsy and fraudulent tactics to try and take political potshots at their ideological opponents (Harry Reid in this instance).

Sadder yet is them doing it to defend their tax dodging father (offshore tax havens) by insinuating that Harry Reid ought to be thankful for the Mittster doing his citizenly duty by paying his taxes, and by proxy, Reid's salary -- you know -- as in Neener-Neener!!

Jeebus - the depth of the self assigned persecution complex and psychological delusion runs frighteningly deep in this bunch:

APRIL 16, 2014, 11:28 AM EDT

While describing the Bundy Ranch standoff between armed anti-government activists and federal authorities, Richard Mack -- the right-wing former sheriff who helped organize the militia -- managed to squeeze in references to both Rosa Parks and the Nazis.

Mack, who said that the protesters had considered using women as human shields and warned that the feds are still planning to raid the Bundy family, made the comments in a Monday interview with conservative radio host Steve Deace.

First, he equated Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the protesters with Rosa Parks, "peasants" who had stood against tyranny that has festered for decades.

"This particular peasant said, ‘No, I’m sorry, I’m not rolling over for this one. You guys are out of line, you don’t own the land, you don’t own our ranch, you don’t own us, and we will stand firm in the principles of freedom that we were blessed with as Americans,'" Mack said, in recordings clipped by Right Wing Watch. "And that’s exactly what this was. This was Rosa Parks refusing to get to the back of the bus."

Remember -- this is the militia guy spokesman, Richard Mack, who is the same philistine that was proudly proclaiming to Fox News that he and his fellow patriot warriors were "strategerizing" about putting the women folk up on the front battle lines as cannon fodder in the unlikely event that the Federal authorities just started blazing away for no provocation at all. And for that demonstration of bravery he is now comparing himself and his Yosemite Sam wannabe sidekicks to be the moral courage parallel of civil & human rights icon Rosa Parks?

The Gadfly honestly does not know whether to laugh hysterically or to elevate his disgust and outrage to the next, rage-filled level over such degenerate lunacy. The assertion that a freeloading, fat-ass cattle baron who refuses to pay the public land usage fees for his equally fat-ass cows to munch on, a fee which 99.9% of the other cattle farmers in the country routinely comply with, you know - because it's the law - is a "freedom" fighter in the vein of Rosa Parks, who stood up to institutional racism and being treated like an inferior human being, is . . . . well . . . . to put it bluntly . . . . one of the most mind-numbingly dumb, dickheaded, cynical and conceited claims that The Gadfly has ever heard these assholes spew.

The Gadfly has given up all hope that these yahoos will ever stop thinking solely of their own, egocentric little tribal movements and causes, and unite with broad societal efforts to try and make this country a more equitable, prosperous and livable place for all of us.

For 20 years, the government has bent over backward, sideways and twisted itself in to pretzel knots in an attempt to compromise with rancher Cliven Bundy and give him all of the opportunity in the world to bring himself in compliance with the law, as equally as his peers are and have been doing. However, Mr. Bundy just outright refuses because he fancy's himself a freedom fighter who is a sovereign citizen who does not recognize the government of the country in which he resides in, and therefore is not bound by any of it's laws and has the right to employ armed violence against those who oppose him.

Can any of you dear readers imagine the bloodshed, cheered on by these fuckwads and their enablers in the right wing media no doubt, that would have ensued if the Occupy Wall Street protesters had adopted that same mentality and trucked in supporters armed with AK-47's and AR-15's, shotguns, Glocks, etc. to confront the NYPD in a standoff?

The Gadfly hopes this situation does not end up in bloodshed, but let's be clear -- if it should happen -- the ONLY people who will have blood on their hands are Cliven Bundy and his idiot offspring, the gun goon posse jagoffs who's definition of FREEEEEEDOM!! equates to putting law enforcement officials in the cross hairs of their sniper rifles, and the jackals in the right wing media who are egging these criminal people on and spoiling for a violent confrontation to occur so that they can then blame it on the Muslim, Kenyan, Commie Negro in the White House and stir up their psychotic, wingnut base even more.